As told in Conte’s book “Testa, Cuore e Gambe”, co written with Antonio Di Rosa published by Rizzoli.
I started reading Conte’s autobiography this week, and wanted to share with you, some of the highlights from the chapters on Juve as I suspect it will never be translated into English. This is not a word for word translation of any of the passages, but rather a review of each chapter with some of my personal thoughts.
This is from the Third Chapter on his arrival at Juve from Lecce through playing for Sacchi in the 1994 World Cup in the United States.
In this chapter, Conte describes his interactions with Boniperti, Gianni “L’Avvocato” Agnelli, then Juve coach Trapattoni, and losing the scudetto in his first season at Juve to Milan, a team coached by Fabio Capello at the time. It was ironic that just 3 days after the book was published, Conte lost the chance to surpass Capello’s Juve from 2005-06 for most points in a Serie A season with 20 Serie A with teams with a somewhat disappointing draw against Cagliari.
My favorite parts of the chapter were Conte’s interactions with Boniperti, probably the greatest Juventino of all time. Conte describes Boniperti calling his house to ask him if he is happy to join Juve, he tells him he knows he is a Juventino which makes the transfer even more exciting. Boniperti assures Conte’s mother he will be well taken care at Juve. I really enjoyed the parts of the chapter where Boniperti shows Conte Juve’s trophy room so he understands what it’s like to be a Juventino. Since then Conte has been able to many trophies to that room including 5 scudetti as a player, 2 as a coach, a Champions League as a player- he will hopefully remain with the club long enough to add another Champions League to that room as a coach. Another great part of the chapter was Conte describing watching the return leg of the Uefa Cup final (today’s Europa League) in Juve’s curva since he was suspended for the game . Conte’s love affair with Juve fans, started that day in my opinion- I wonder if he would have ever imagined the bond would become as strong as it is now.
It made me proud to be a Juventino, when I read that Boniperti took Conte to meet Gianni Agnelli almost immediately after he joined Juve. Agnelli displayed his strong knowledge of Juve’s history when he told Conte he could follow in the footsteps of two other great Juventini from Conte’s hometown Lecce- Causio and Brio.
Conte formed a strong bond with his first coach at Juve, the great Giovanni Trapattoni. Conte describes how in his debut for Juve in a friendly, he made a mistake causing striker Fofana to score a winning goal for French team Monaco, which is now coached by another former Juve coach Ranieri. The following day, Trapattoni told Conte to forget all about that mistake and to move in and that one day he could exceed Furino’s record for most scudetti won as a Juve player (8). It was fascinating to read how Trapattoni, a coach who is often associated with “catenaccio”, used Conte as the sole defensive midfielder in a team that featured great offensive players like Roberto Baggio (who Conte describes as very reserved), Platt, Andy Moeller (one of my favorite Juventini growing up), Vialli and Casiraghi.
Conte also describes in this chapter some principles that will become near and dear to him as Juve’s coach- how the only way to overcome difficulty is total dedication, application and hard work.